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TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

After their unfortunate starring vehicle Running Wild in 1954 they wisely shied away from television for the next few years, until persuaded by the influential Val Parnell to make guest appearances in his variety shows for ATV.


Establishing themselves as a solid booking Parnell took a chance and set aside time for a series 'Bernard Delfont Presents The Morecambe & Wise Show', debuting 12th October 1961 across the ITV network. All their ATV shows were written by S.C.Green (Sid) and R.M.Hills (Dick) who would stay with the duo until the late sixties and their move to the BBC.


Initially, all of the guest musical acts were popular singers of the day like Gary Miller, Cleo Laine, Valerie Masters and trad jazz bands led by Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and Dick Charlesworth.


The second series, now titled Two Of A Kind had the same singers and trad jazz line-up with The Beverly Sisters and Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson as resident singers with a different trad jazz group each week. By the time of the third series the weekly trad jazz band was phased out and more singers were brought in and, once in a while, a pop group like Joe Brown and His Bruvvers would be used.


The title Two Of A Kind was dropped for the new series in 1964 and while the singers were present and correct trad jazz had made an unwelcome return. However, the 18th April 1964 show featured The Beatles who played several songs live and joined in on a musical sketch with Eric and Ernie. The following week everything returned to normal for the rest of the series with guests like Edmund Hockridge, Acker Bilk and The Bachelors.


There would be no new shows in 1965, instead a Best Of Morecambe and Wise series filled the space until the new series began in January 1966. This new series would have pop guests, as well as the usual middle of the road singers, with the likes of Lulu, Georgie Fame, Herman's Hermits making an appearance. The final ATV series ran from 1967 into 1968 and had to recorded twice during the same sessions, once in black and white for the UK market and then in colour for the USA where the show would be renamed Piccadilly Palace, being a summer replacement for Hollywood Palace. The duo had appeared several times on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show at the insistence of the host and it was decided to give them a break with their own series in the USA. Unfortunately for the UK audience they decided to repeat some of their recent ATV sketches for the American version. Pop acts this time around included The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Hollies and The Moody Blues among others.


After the failure of Piccadilly Palace it was decided to concentrate on the home market and a move to BBC2 would see them appear in colour for the first time in the UK. The move to BBC2 in 1968 however saw a return to the early sixties reliance of trad jazz and singers, but Elton John would appear a couple of times in the mid-seventies.



THE MORECAMBE AND WISE SHOW / TWO OF A KIND


ATV

12th October 1961 - 31st March 1968, 11th August 1968